If you have found this web page because you are an equine breeder then I strongly recommend that you look at www.britishbreeding.org for a lot more information on Futurity.

If you are struggling with this problem there is no point in continuing to do exactly the same thing day after day … this will only reinforce the bad behaviour with your horse. You need to think of a different approach to solve the problem … to prevent stopping from becoming “normal” behaviour.

Lead your horse from the ground over the jump

If there is somebody available on the ground then ask them to lead your horse over the fence. Alternatively, dismount and lead your horse over the fence. It may seem defeatist to dismount but at this stage it is more important to get your horse over the fence by whatever method that works.

Reward your horse with treats in the arena

Horse like being praised … but they like food even more Rewarding with food will reinforce the good behaviour of approaching and going over the scary poles and fillers.

One note of caution here is that your horse must see the treat as a reward for going over the pole. If your horse will not go near the pole it may be appropriate to reward your horse when he goes near the pole. However, do not do this more than once otherwise you are simply rewarding stopping close to the fence. Your aim is to reward your horse for going over the fence.

Schooling with show jumps in the arena

If you are based at a Show Jumping yard there may well be show jumps permanently up in an arena. If this is the case then school your youngster in this arena even if you are not jumping or even before you start to school your youngster over jumps. Schooling in an arena with show jumps and doing circles around or in front of them will help your horse to become familiar with show jumps and learn that they are not scary.

If you do not have access to an arena with show jumps or your yard requires you to clear show jumps away every time that you use them then you will need to get some jumps out whenever you want to school your horse. You do not need to setup a show jump course every time … simply drag out a few fillers and a few poles and scatter them about the arena. You dont need to get the wings out as well.

Hacks – spooking

If your horse sees something spooky out on a hack then make your horse go over to it so that he can sniff at it. Once horses have had a sniff of a scary object they often lose all interest in it. The aim is to train your horse to respect your aids, trust the rider and move towards the scary object. Personally, I found this invaluable for eventers because on the cross country course your horse may be nervous of the obstacle but must respect your legs and go towards the scary obstacle.

Circle back the way the horse ran away

If your horse spooks out on a hack or away from a scary filler then turn your horse back the way he has come. So if your horse runs away to the left then steer your horse back to the right. This ensures that you are telling the horse that it was wrong to run away to the left.

If you allow your horse to continue to the left and circle round to the left and approach the filler again you haven’t made it clear to the horse that it was wrong to run away to the left. Obviously the fence must be small to allow your horse to get over it because steering back on yourself will not give you the ideal approach to the jump !

Horse must go forward all the time

Your horse must be moving all the time. It is very important that your horse learns to respect your leg aids and responds by moving forwards. Forwards obviously ideally means towards the jump but if your horse is scared of the pole or filler then move in any direction – left or right – but keep your horse moving.

However, since I have changed to dressage and only have one discipline to focus on I have changed and become very loyal to one trainer at a time. I don’t even go to other trainers for ad hoc lessons.

The advantages of having a single trainer are:

• consistency – you do not get two trainers telling you to do two different things
• development – your trainer understands your goals and develops you and your horse at your own individual pace
• clarity – I understand what my trainer is asking Razz and I to do the why we are doing specific exercises
• long term goals – my trainer understands my goals and has a training plan to achieve these goals

The disadvantages of having a single trainer are:

• there will always be things that my trainer is saying that I either do not understand or have mis-interpreted
• selective deafness – unfortunately after a while I only hear the bits that I want to hear which may mean that I am missing some key things that would improve our performance

Over Christmas 2011 I decided to change my dressage training in 2012. I have to be honest the decision was primarily financial but after a few months with this new training regime I think that it is actually a much better training routine … and it is cheaper

There are two fundamental differences in 2012:

• training once every two weeks – this actually enables Razz and I to go away and work on exercises that my trainer has given me so that there is a clear difference (hopefully an improvement) by the next lesson.
• two trainers – both trainers are trained by Carl Hester so there is a lot of consistency in what they are saying to me. I have a lesson with each trainer once a month.

I believe that Razz & I have made enormous improvements since the start of this new training regime. There are two key improvements:

• same things said in two different ways – for me this seems to make the message more effective.
• training is more complete because each trainer focusses on different aspects of my riding and my horse

With only having one lesson a month with each individual trainer both trainers have asked me what I would like to work on during the lesson. Since each trainer sees me only monthly there is too much of a gap for them to plan the long term training so the responsibility for this is now mine. This is not a bad thing but it is new to me and I now need to spend a bit of time before each lesson to think about what I want to achieve in each lesson.

In summary, I would recommend multiple trainers with an interval between training to allow you to work on exerecises and improve between lessons. However, you do need to consider what you want to achieve from each lesson and give your trainer goals for each lesson.

Lee Valley Riding Centre runs bi-monthly Show Jumping competitions for clients. The recent very wet weather meant that the April competition was held in the indoor arena. The outdoor arenas could not be used so competitors were allowed to warm up in the indoor arena with trot, canter for several minutes followed by two practice jumps. This reminded me of Inter-Polytechnic competitions that I competed in several years ago where I rode a horses that I had never ridden before with similar limits on the warm up on the flat and over jumps.

The video shows edited clips of Anwaar’s warm up and the jumping the course competitively.

Watch Anwaar’s other videos.

• Charlotte Dujardin & Valegro scored a world record score of 88.022% winning the Grand Prix Special on the final day of Hagen CDI4*
• Carl Hester & Uthopia scored a British record score of 83.298% in the Grand Prix at Addington Manor Premier League show. Carl was also in second place on Wie Atlantico.
• Laura Bechtolsheimer & Mistral Hojris scored a UK record score of 85.35% coming second in the Grand Prix Freestyle to Matthias Rath & Totilas.
• Richard Davison & Hiscox Artemis were the only British competitors at the 2012 Reem Acra FEI World Cup Finals and they finished 5th in both the Grand Prix (73.374%) and Freestyle (78.571%).

I normally focus dressage on this website but it is worth pointing out other equine disciplines are also having a lot of success

• William Fox-Pitt won the Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event on Parklane Hawk. Following his win at Burghley last September William was aiming win Badminton to claim the $350,000 Rolex Grand Slam. It was therefore frustrating that Badminton was cancelled following the bad weather. However, William is still eligible for the Grand Slam at next years Badminton.
• Nick Skelton & Big Star won the Grand Prix of Antwerp and was one of only two double clears.
• Ben Maher & Tripple X won the 1.60m class in the second leg of the Global Champions Tour in Spain. Ben and Michael Whitaker, who came second to Ben, were the only two riders to jump three clear rounds.
• Joanne Eccles, Hannah Eccles and Lucy Phillips, took the top 3 positions on the podium at the FEI International Vaulting in Saumur, France

I have finally discovered the details of team selection:

• By 2nd July 2012 the selectors will recommend the horse/rider to the British Olympic Association
• British Olympic Association are responsible for the public announcement but I cannot find any details about when the BOA will make this announcement.
• The selection panel is: Nick Burton (chair), Jane Kidd, Sandy Phillips, David Trott, Simon Hardwick and Linda Whetstone

It has been quite hard to find this information. I have got this information from a policy document. Anybody involved with horses will understand the risk of injury that may prevent training or even worse participation in the London Olympics which means that the team should be announced as late as possible. But I think a bit more publicity about the time scales for the announcement of the team would be gratefully received by everybody involved with dressage.

Nichole asked me to edit video clips that she had recorded on her own camcorder into a “for sale” video. My editing software can intelligently improve shaky camcorder footage so I can edit together an attractive video to support selling the horse using the normal “horse for sale” websites.

• Please contact Nichole Baker (0771 412 5898) if you are interested in this horse.
• Please contact me if you would like a video of your horse. (More contact details)

Lee Valley Riding Centre runs bi-monthly Show Jumping competitions for clients. The video shows Anwaar competing in the first competition of the year on 24 Feb 2012.

Watch Anwaar’s other videos.

Clicking the Read More link goes to their “Customer Success Stories” webpage. Below is a clip from the screen …”

A very nice write up for the website, my video business and my sister’s pastel paintings

HostPapa have provided me with an extremely reliable service since I started this website and I am very happy to recommend them. Their service is also cost effective and green because it is “powered by 100% renewable energy sources”.

The full list of 24 nations that have qualified to compete in the dressage competition at the London Olympics is: